The Martin jetpack, a commercially developed jetpack, may soon be heading to a sky near you.

It is about time man flew among the birds – alone. We may not have the homes on the moon, or the flying cars that our totally reasonable childhood imaginations ensured us would be waiting for us when we grew up, but with a little luck and a lot of money, we might soon be able to scratch “jetpack” off of our bucket lists.

Imagine one day soon, you kiss the spouse good bye, walk the kids off to the school bus, then you prepare for the commute to work. But rather than sitting in traffic and squeezing your steering wheel in frustration as the car in front of you apparently believes the old adage of “speed kills”, so they are driving 15 MPH under the speed limit, you simply throw on your jetpack, terrify a few birds, and make it to work in record time. Sure there might be a few details that you would need to work out, like the practicalities on your hygiene after ripping through the wind with an engine strapped to your back, or the fact that you are betting your life on the reliability of the vehicle, but we are talking about a jetpack- practicalities be damned!

Everyone knew it the moment they saw it. Hell, even Steve Jobs alluded to it when he was unveiling the thing. The new multitouch iPod Nano was made to be strapped to a watch band. Here it is, for $17.

OK, so there’s still the issue of having headphones plugged into your watch at all times. And the limits of the Nano’s looks-like-iOS-but-can’t-run-apps-like-iOS operating system. But these things are pretty minor when you consider that this time next week you could be wearing an IPOD as a WATCH. Imagine the look on your 2001 self’s face if you told them that in under a decade you’d be wearing one of those iPod things on your wrist. It’d be a look of incredulity. And longing!

I definitely want to try this glass-bottomed hot air balloon, even while its pilot and inventor says it’s a “terrifying experience.” I don’t know why no other sadist think about this before, but flying in it must be blood-curdling

The Magic Trackpad is basically a larger version of the MacBook Pro touchpad, with 80% more surface area for all your swiping and pinching. The entire surface acts as a button, so it’s also a possible mouse replacement. And all of the expected gestures are here: two-finger scrolling, pinch to zoom, fingertip rotation, and three- and four-finger swipes.

Spike-busters and power strips usually sport their set number of sockets regardless the shape of the plugs to be used. Unless you go in for the expensive Belkin ones, “extension cords” here in India are standard and sport limited sockets. Something like the Slot-Type Power Outlet will be handy for us and the world over. The idea is not to have “holes” or set number of “sockets”, but just a swipe-in slot to hook up the plugs. This ways different shaped plugs reside comfortably next to each other plus accommodate more than the regular strips.

Slots for 3-pin and 2-pin plugs are different though, but easy to manage.

After discovering video games, I didn’t really keep up with my old friend Nerf. But last night I got to shoot and get shot by the Stampede, a new, fully automatic Nerf rifle with a tripod and replaceable magazines. What!?

Just like robots and movie violence and Halloween costumes, Nerf guns are getting more realistic with each passing year. The N-Strike Stampede Blaster, the first fully automatic dart clip Nerf weapon, is the most realistic to date. Maybe not realistic in the sense that it looks just like some real gun that any military uses, but real in the sense that it looks like the yellow version of something that could fire bullets and fatally wound someone.